


Natural Satellites

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bartender Sebastian, Drug Dealing, Experimental Prose, Happy Ending, Jim is trans, Jim's POV, M/M, Masturbation, Reclaimed Slurs, Recreational Drug Use, Sebastian has a mullet and looks like Ewan McGregor and is also trans, Slow Burn, University AU, even though jim is andrew scott this doesn't have anything to do with bbc sherlock, if sherlock existed in this world the characters couldn't be happy, it should go without saying this all takes place in my mind palace, mormor, some random doyle characters, t4t
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:27:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27963752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: You are James Moriarty: child of prodigy and darkness. Born for schism and duality. Gifted with your cunning. Cursed by your unavoidable wickedness.You're twenty two; you go by Jim. You're living in Oxford while trying to fight your way to the top of the ivory tower, you think a lot about moons and asteroids, and there's a local bartender who keeps catching your eye...
Relationships: Sebastian Moran/Jim Moriarty
Kudos: 8





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skippable content. Main takeaways are, Jim does acid, likes movie soundtracks, is a weird guy. If this kind of indulgent prose isn't your thing I urge you to head straight into the next chapter, where the story really begins.

Go on; this is the true first step. Your brain tells this to your hand; your digits curl inward beneath your index finger where the precipitant paper, no larger than the middle of your sworling fingerprint, stares at you. You sit in your car, looking out at what you can glimpse from here of Carrauntoohil Mountain, before looking back at the tab. The image on it is an impression of an eye, radiating miniscule red and blue tesselations from its center. It is your own supply; you have guaranteed the quality, even if you do find the picture garishly psychedelic. 

One minor hesitation stands between you and this tab of 200 micrograms of pure LSD: though you are already at your prescribed destination, though your bag is packed, your mind ready, though you even have a flight tomorrow morning, this will be the first time you have ever tried it. 

For the last six years, you have been researching the stylish asteroid belt that the Milky Way wears above its waist: pebbled with elemental oddities, unexpected activity, jets, plumes, sudden comets, this local region of the stars caught your attention early on in an accelerated Physics class. You slept well that night, your parents' drunken clashing appearing in your young, spongy little brain as great, vast mineral surfaces colliding with one another; still rocks, silent as space itself, suddenly thrown into roaring passion. It was only after time mercifully turned you sixteen that you were able to leave your hideous family home to pursue this interest, and you're twenty-two now. Way off schedule. 

Once you started your work, how on Earth could you have found the time to turn on, tune in, and drop out? You aren't the kind of man who deviates from his goals easily. 

And speaking of… you regard the acid with narrowed eyes. It doesn't frighten you. Why should it? You have never feared your own imagination. But you do fear Devil's Ladder, and that is why you've prepared for this hike adequately: plenty of water, emergency amphetamines, a compass, a hunting knife, your best tennis shoes, your telescope, and most importantly, ten cassette tapes of the best cinematic soundtracks you could find, a tape player, and a set of over-the-ear headphones. 

You take a deep breath-- _bottom's up_ \-- and ingest the acid. It tastes, on the very back of your tongue, like the color grey. You slide on your headphones and slot Ennio Morricone's _The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly_ into the player. Its star-shaped eyes start to spin. You imagine yourself as a hypnotist, twirling its irises with mere twitches of your fingers; mesmerizing it, the way it mesmerizes you. You put on your headphones. 

Fuzz. And a drumbeat, far away. Morricone's melody is like a unique bird call: _awahawahah, wah-wah-wah._ Mating season for the spaghetti Western. You leave the car. It is now thirty minutes or more before the acid hits. You wonder how much ground you can cover before it takes you.

* * *

You've never seen the inside of an airport outside of movies. There, the airport seems to be a multipurpose set, used by all-- with the same huge glass grid windows and steel cylindrical joints and all the same people running with their luggage, on a perpetual trip round the globe. It is where the desperate, star-crossed lovers smush up against each other as security runs out of breath chasing after them. It is where the handsome, suited men with handsome aviator glasses must walk briskly and without a glance to the side to get to their luxury lounges, their first class seats. 

When you were younger, you wanted to be the man in sunglasses. Well, now you have a pair of ill-gotten Ray Bans and a Cartier wristwatch. You've soured on the idea of first class. If anyone, you aspire to be the people with no story besides their speed and their baggage-- Mr. late for a flight, Mr. light traveler. You still wear your coat, and maybe the sleep mask or the neck pillow from your previous plane. You're the extra, who is not important or simple; who is always going, and always will, because you aren't so singularly dimensioned as to resolve your core personal problems in a tight ninety. You are a human being with an entire life. 

You falter. This narrative consultation on your identity gives you the strangest feeling of being watched. You refocus on the hike.

* * *

Three things are dawning on you as you mount an overlook, the pop-heavy _American Psycho_ soundtrack drilling gorgeous diamond stripper poles into your ears.

The first thing is that you are going to fly to London tomorrow. The second, that you will then take a train to Oxford, and you will be greeted by some boring elderly faculty member with a great deal of personal pride in the fact that you are the _youngest_ ever to receive a research contract, and you will be swept around a ballroom and meet this or that person, and then-- unclear. Perhaps the sheer amount of new experiences will just kill you, like something from another planet crippled by the air in our human world. 

And third, you are feeling incredibly nauseous. You sink down onto the ground, breathing so hard you can hear it through your headphones. Your head swims. Are you sweating from the walk or is it something else? 

You could swear that Phil Collins is looking right over your shoulder; you can practically feel his warm breath in time to the moody intro of In The Air Tonight. You roll your shoulders back. Your neck goes slack and you drop your ear to your shoulder, then roll your skull back so that your crown is behind your spine and you are looking up at the cloudy sky. There is a crack in your joints, and the sky looks pinker than you remember it. No… it's still blue. But there is pink behind it. 

Your head continues on its lazy orbit above your shoulders, flopping above your left arm. Then it dangles forward, above your chest. Above your heart. Beatbeatbeatbeat. 

Apart from slight excitement, you don't feel any different. But the rock you're sitting on is so comfortable, the view beginning to excel in distance and color. You wait for the song's signature drums-- the only _real_ reason to listen to Phil Collins-- before you go any further. And when they crash, they crash like lightning. Like asteroids, one into the other. It doesn't seem possible that this sound is made of a stick, a stretched piece of canvas. You throw your head down and up, feeling every smack of the snare drum like a magnetic wave; rushing over your shoulders, seizing your hands. It far outclasses any previous response you have had to Phil Collins. 

You rise to your feet and the mountain path rises to meet you, balancing your feet on its fingertips. You heft your bag. _Mission control… it's safe to say we have lift-off,_ you think, and laugh aloud.

* * *

Once you are partway through Kubrick's greatest, listening to the mysterious, trembling vocals that accompany the unknowing bombardiers, tuned into the rendering of such a banal, token piano piece as _When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again_ into this haunting, threatening, moving, inspiring choir, the mountain moves beneath you. It doesn't shake you from its rock-wrinkled back; instead, the path oozes like water. The rocks become drops, rippling out,  
and out  
and out. 

The hike is precarious. Dirt slides out from under your beaten converses. The evening approaches rapidly, taking your visibility of the earth as your star-sight improves. 

You are physically fit, though not as much as you once were. Your years of self-imposed isolation and intense mental exercise made the pursuit of fitness nearly impossible. But your arms and chest are still strong, your legs are willing, and this drug in your system makes you feel slightly more than human. It isn't like coffee, even if it mimics the buzzing nervous activity of caffeine. Different too from grass, even if it fills you with a keen interest in all things. There is something else in it that makes your thoughts seem stronger. Bodied. Your teeth clack against each other, a jack-o-lantern grin. 

It is possible you could do anything. Lift a car. Push a boulder up a hill. Certainly, you can finish this hike. And though it isn't a soundtrack, you put on _The Miracle_.

* * *

Steady as a branch, across the crumbling crest of Devil's Ladder, you're able to see the fog in the distance like a great dome. A cloche that God might raise with a pair of white gloves and a little black tie, serving you with a knife and fork to the ravages of time. 

_It ain't much I'm askin'  
If you want the truth  
Here's to the future  
For the dreams of youth_

You cackle. The sky is blown into colors so bright you can only associate them with candy. It looks to be melting, oozing, conversating, the clouds like paint in a tub of water, the sun going down over the hill casting fantastic patterns high above its golden brow. Mandelbrots pooling, tessellating, they break apart and form together. Never before have you felt a connection to God, but right now, you feel like you can look them in the eyes. They are no different from you, maybe; and still, this is what they've given you. Impulsively, you throw up your middle finger to the sky and kick a rock over the side of the mountain. It clatters down, down, as Freddy wants it all. You're still laughing; you wonder if you'll ever be able to stop.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *likes John Gardner a little too much for comfort*


	2. The True First Step

You find yourself standing in a bathroom that, despite residing within the hallowed halls of one of Oxford's mustiest, most gilded venues, smells of the same brand of cleaner that every other public restroom does. Lemon and acid. A neon hygiene thoroughly rendered, even down to the particles of air that sweep up your nose. 

Across from you is a sink mirror compensating for the stench of disinfectant with enormous, glow-swollen vanity lights that direct attention to even the smallest of your imperfections. Your madman's eyebrows are unplucked, your mop of thick, dark hair ever-so slightly mussed. Beneath them, the eyes that turn heads and then spin them back away twice as fast look even more intense, dark and endless. The grossly pubescent mustache that shadows your upper lip and the most daring of your stubby black facial hairs give you an unshaven, adolescent appearance. It would be the end of the world if you hadn't thought to afford yourself a key aesthetic luxury prior to tonight. 

With the profits from your independent business venture impregnating the sallow stomach of your wallet, you went to a store so fancy none of its mannequins had faces. They were all snow white, too well-dressed for legs, watching you sightlessly as you selected clothes you'd only ever dreamt about. You're wearing them now: a dark red dress shirt, matte and tight against your chest, a pluming black tie, and a jet black jacket that squares your shoulders. Beneath the mirror, concealing your knees in case they knock, are equally black suit pants. You're still in your tennis shoes, though. They didn't carry your size in any men's stores. If anyone notices the ragged shoelaces, you plan to fake a seizure to avoid the embarrassment. 

Your face twists. You give yourself a ghoulish smile, then a devastated frown. You bare your teeth and furrow your brow so your nostrils flare. You stick out your tongue. Your face goes slack. You draw from your waist, fingers in the shape of a gun, and pull the trigger on your reflection. 

You can only spend so long looking at yourself, Jimmy. Eventually you'll have to go back. 

You concede. As soon as your mind is made up, you'll go.

The people aggravate. After the ceremony, which paled in comparison to the private induction you gave yourself the night before, they started to mingle you like a specimen-- regarding you from far above the end of their noses, wearing their wrinkles like badges of honor. They asked you if your parents support you; if you're published; if you're going to be a professor, did you know that other young person who came here and cracked from the pressure, and say you wouldn't like to be a teacher's assistant, and why did you choose astronomy, or was it physics? and have you travelled? 

It is also mentionable that though none of them mistake your gender, their gaze is somewhat judgmental; their words hover on 'young man', and 'Mr. Moriarty'. Eventually they begin calling to you just 'Moriarty' like you're their Etonian classmate, you're old friends, or perhaps like you are not personed adequately for a first name. 

But you still found yourself rubbing their elbows with a tender, charming touch; still, your expression twisted to the one of darling prodigy, bright-eyed, wise-minded, attentive and diminutive. If they like you, they'll stay out of your way, you justify. The truth is, you can't resist a little networking. When you look at them all you can see is how simple their desires are. A puzzle of one piece, a painting, a picture, a half-sketch of a real life: they want control, above all else. Their primary means of taking this control have been, and maybe always were, wealth and knowledge. 

You may not know the names that they mention-- these Spinozas, these Cavendishes, may as well be varieties of tomato-- but you know you aren't as easy to reduce to a few petty needs for security, social currency, superiority. _You_ study asteroids. 

And you're going to drink tonight. That's that. 

You did acid last night. You proved your resilience to the influence-- you're an adult at a party in your honor and everyone is goddamn annoying and in no world is alcohol more potent than psychedelics. You have every reason to drink. 

Restoring your expression, you crack your knuckles and prepare to return.

* * *

The function is not quite what you had expected. Ideally, it would be a ballroom with Sistine ceilings and arched windows, and there would be heavy red curtains drawn to filter the moonlight through a needle, and a live harpist. Instead, it's an open air pavilion: a columned, covered section laid with marble reserved for the caterers and the bar boasts many splendidly dressed department heads and board members. They obscure the workers who, you know firsthand, are probably in a tizzy behind all that satin and gabardine. An emerald green lawn, fenced in hedges, dully holds up the white tablecloths and silver table dressing-- for socializing and smoking around. 

Letting your shoulders fill your jacket confidently, you sashay through the crowd until you spot the bar. You already know what you're going to say to the bartender, so everything appears to be according to plan-- until your shoes slap the tile floor and you are finally able to meet the eyes of the bartender. 

There is a sameness between you that you cannot describe even though he looks nothing like you. He's tall, even a little lanky. Highly toned biceps flex beneath the folded sleeves of his shirt; your own arms feel overdressed and underworked. His smile comes easily, toothily-- there's nothing false about it. His light hair is cut into an embarrassingly defined mullet. Ginger root blond locks stop in a lazy wave above the small of his back. Overgrown bangs shadow his agate blue eyes. And yet when he looks up at you, you're filled with a sense of knowing, of familiarity. Have you met before? 

As you grow closer, you begin to wonder if this experience is attraction. It doesn't feel hot or warm or any of the other words you thought went with 'attracted', but it does feel _piqued_. Bright.

Once you're right in front of him, you confirm that sexuality must be a part of it. This man is unlike any other you've seen; his face is like an imperfect pearl, scarred on his cheek and nose and beneath his eye. He regards you with warmth and you wonder if he feels it too; and you have forgotten what you were going to say. "What can I get ya?" 

You falter, and in your hesitation, instead of the manicured impression of someone far more experienced, you tell the truth. "I've never drank before in my life."

His sandy eyebrows bounce up onto his forehead and he smiles at you like you're both in on the same joke. "Special night, huh?" His accent is unplaceable. 

"Something like that," you allude vaguely, putting your weight into your arms, those channels of duality and speech, so you're leaning in the shape of a slide against the bar. 

"Hmm." You watch as he flicks a shot glass into the air with one finger and catches it with his opposite hand. Good party trick. He clacks it down on the surface of the bar. "Oughta begin on a high note. I'll fix you up, stranger." 

"Thanks..." One of his sleeves seems to carry an archery theme: the constellation of Sagittarius, a depiction of St. Sebastian that slopes around his forearm so that the martyred man's chest swells out, and targets, flint arrows, fiery arrows, arrows of love in an anatomically correct heart. You still can't bring yourself to utter the phrase 'nice ink'. Instead, you're silent, studying him as he pours blue and orange, brown and green. 

The resulting concoction looks like layers of sediment in a cross-section. You look at it dubiously. 

"You have to put it in your mouth," the bartender says to you, stoking your already irritated flame. How stupid does he think you are? You roll your eyes. 

"No, really? Shit, I might have to rethink this entire thing," you drawl, picking up the shot glass. He shrugs, creasing his lower lip like the bow on a present. Oh, to unwrap it. Your flame diminishes a little and you decide you can afford to humor him with a question. 

"What do you call this?" 

"Birthday shot." 

You push it across the bar with a feline displeasure. "It's not my birthday." 

"No?" He purses his lips. "I can do better." 

He pulls a larger glass and a diamond bottle of vodka out from beneath the bar, adding, "it would help if I knew what the special occasion is." 

Your mouth threatens to smile. "Oh, just a minor academic accomplishment." 

"Come on," he flips the liquor absentmindedly, "what's the big secret?" Catching it by the neck and then tossing it back up, letting it smack his palm and back up, he does it with such rhythmic perfection you can imagine him doing it at all hours, up and down, catch and release, and-- Christ, you're getting hypnotized. 

"I…" You haven't said it out loud. Not once. To anybody. The words sort of slide dryly, uncertainly out of you, "won a research grant. For astrophysics." Did you really? Strange-- it feels like a dream. 

"Seriously?" His eyes are fucking shining. This is starting to feel like some sort of joke to you. 

"Yeah." Walls up. "Can I get my drink?" 

"Oh. Yeah." The bartender's cheeks are pink now. His fingers-- which you now see have miniature lotuses tattooed beneath each knuckle-- swing the bottle of vodka around and he douses the ice with it. He looks unfortunately pretty ducking his head to watch his pouring, and even more so when he offers you the finished drink-- as red as your shirt. 

"What's this one?" 

"Vodka cranberry." 

You wrinkle your nose. "I hate cranberries." 

Though the sound he puffs through his nostrils is identifiably exasperation, he's still looking at you with those heart-eyes. Not joking, then? He likes your messy hair? Your fuzzy eyebrows? Your small, chubby hands? Your _demands_? Or is it the idea of bedding someone like you? You stare at him with your off-putting eyes until he slides the glass to the side with the other reject. 

"Third time's the charm." His next attempt is Jameson on the rocks. He nearly tells you what it is, but your hand is already on the glass, drawing it close to you. This drink, you recognize: "Hm." 

"Satisfied with that one?" 

" _Conflicted_ , darling. Let me make up my mind." If you don't let it, drinking what your father drank won't affect you. Besides, this seems like a proper way to get drunk; no pussy-footing with speed or dilutants. You take a sip. 

As expected, it burns. You relish that part, to truly understand how it feels. To escape pain, you turn your head towards it: the sear crawls down your throat, becomes warm in your chest. Underneath the pain is the taste of chestnut, vanilla, firewood; the taste of smoking and burning, cracking and meat. You can't deny it, as the bartender suggested, _satisfied_. 

"Not bad," you say mildly. 

He snorts. "Thanks, mate." 

"Jim." 

"Thanks, Jim." He looks at you from the side, something in his eyes-- something sly, something you've only ever seen in the mirror. "Sebastian." 

A voice pipes up behind you; your hands clench the glass, like you've been caught. But it's just the head of English. " _Moriarty_ , I found my colleague who told me about your proposal," he tells you, dragging a gruntled woman in a drenched-looking herringbone jacket behind him, "and she can explain that question I asked _far_ better," 

There is no way for you to avoid being talked at. Even so, you're ashamed of how quickly your face morphs from Jim, normal bloke to Moriarty, whiz kid; you wouldn't normally be, but it's impossible not to detect the slight decline in Sebastian's posture, the faint disappointment-- and you know you've lost his interest, if you ever even had it. 

The head of English is still speaking to you. "... so I was curious if astrologically…" and you take a sip of your drink, detaching from the bar. 

"Of course, Harold. I was _just_ thinking of a way to put it that you'd understand," you hear yourself say. Before the wall of attendees closes you off from your one human contact at this soiree, Sebastian has time to hear you-- and laugh.


	3. The White Robe

You have a dream about him the next week. There was a time when you would have, after waking up with the images of summery hair and a close, wet mouth still fresh in your mind, written down every detail you could remember; you would have fretted over its meaning in a desperate attempt to decode your internal processes, until the dream's emotions had all been distilled to words: the bodies grown cold, the settings made wooden. Only then would you have forgotten it. 

Your days of dream analysis and Freudian introspection are, thankfully, long behind you now. You've accepted that dreams are a trite, dishonest reshuffling of memories, no more significance in them than any other occult form of enlightenment. Dreams, tarot, astrology-- though you are fond of their chintzy aesthetics, their innate campiness, their _humanity_ , the ubiquitous ridicule of these innocent cosmic endeavors in your field has prohibited your exploration. After all, you want to be taken seriously. 

So you do not delve into the dream about him. You do not think about the snow-white robe he was wearing, you don't think about how your hands parted the cloth and touched the bloody beat of his heart, or how your fingers came away red and you licked them. You don't think about how it was so real you could smell him. His breathing. His sweat. No, you don't think about any of this. Not at all. 

You are now busy from six in the morning to six o'clock at night. You live in student housing two blocks away from the campus-- something you finagled with the director of financing by agreeing to write a favorable audit of Oxford's residential services-- and your schedule lives in the space between your iris and your eyelid. It snaps at you with every blink. It imposes on your sleep. Six, wake up and force yourself into the communal shower and do the indignant acts of human hygiene and iron your clothes (laid out the night before); make yourself presentable and drink your coffee and sort the day's four-finger high pile of documents. You have three categories: _boring_ , _boring but important_ , and _interesting_. It would perhaps be prudent to add a fourth category, _interesting but not important_ , given that you always devote your time to what piques your curiosity as opposed to what may be most relevant. Ah, but you are in college now. You do drugs and drink. There will be time to develop your prudence in a setting that challenges it less later-- that is, if you must develop it at all. 

Besides, you believe that your impulses-- and anything that they draw you to-- must be far better tuned than the average person. Perhaps that's the _genius_ you have that people are always talking about: your instincts, your sense of knowing. 

Typically, when you finish admiring the content of your _interesting_ pile, it is past time for you to be at the lab. "I will work by my own clock," you remember telling the technicians. Their expressions were dubious, but once you reminded them of that other young person who came to Oxford and cracked from the pressure, they relaxed. "I won't be more than an hour late," you said, lying. Time has always had a habit of slipping away from you. Though you may try to cling to it-- to bus schedules, to deadlines, to dates and AMs and PMs-- they all behave like unstudiable particles. There one moment. Acting fine one moment. You blink, you turn around and it's become the afternoon of next week when it was just midnight today.

So you arrive at the lab as soon as you register that you should have already been there. Once you're enclosed behind those unassuming school cafeteria-style doors, the gleam in your eyes turned stark white by the fluorescents, you are committed to nothing but the research. 

You are attempting to find correlations in the dimensions of asteroids: size, mineral distribution, weight, density, the probability of random events-- even when they were discovered, by who, their orbits, their magnetism. The minor planets and planetoids of our solar system have a spectacular variance and mysterious origins. This may very well be the true first step in learning more about them. 

"I heard that asteroids are what's going to destroy us," the de facto representative of the lab techs Atherly comments this to you as they prepare to go to lunch. 

On this particular day, _Ceres_ looks up at you. Its mythological title is turned cute on the blue-text printout you're reading. 

"Hawking thinks so." 

"Yeah, that's probably where I heard it." 

Your eyes are just now starting to hurt from the small type. The lab tech fidgets at the door, looping their coat over one arm, then the other. "Are you taking a break today?" 

You forget to answer them. Four and a half years on Earth is only one year on Ceres; the largest of all asteroids, outclassed only by Pluto. You knew this fact already. The pain in your eyes shoots. 

You ignore it until Atherly is gone, and then set the printout aside. Your black frame reading glasses, the ones that make your big eyes appear even bigger, are tucked beneath a non-functioning Macintosh. You fish them out and slide them on before you continue your reading. You don't want them to see you look so typically boy-wonder, even if you have no interest in their friendship. It's nothing against them, you suppose. You just fail to see what would come of it. But there is that ulterior look in their eye, the one you have come to recognize as desire-- the only thing you cannot decipher is _for what_. 

The day's work could take up to, and occasionally exceeding, ten hours. Are you happy? No… 'happy' isn't exactly something you feel. It never has been. You do feel things, contrary to what your parents believed. You feel delight, surprise, you feel normal and you feel weird; you feel loss, though it isn't accompanied by grief. Actually, there's an easier way for you to put it. 

You've striven to organize yourself along the lines of the planets, mapping your psyche out across the Milky Way where it belongs-- far away. The sun is your voice, all of these tumbling ideas that you never knew until you thought them. Mercury the unpredictable channel through which your voice often carried, Venus, cloudy and untouchable, the gorgeousness you have preened yourself to with years of conscious effort-- your image and reputation-- to contrast the ugly utility of Mars, that planet of action and ambition, the work drive, the sex drive. You know fucking is not divorced from intellect. You don't think of sex as an animal act anymore. Still, it precedes a hell of an undertaking. A hell of vulnerability. 

Jupiter and Saturn hold all your memories of a lonely youth and absent parents, enormous and looming, appearing at your side at inopportune moments to cripple your confidence with their vastness. Neptune and Uranus, those deeper, subconscious places, contact with which is enabled only by psychedelics and whose surfaces you cannot picture. 

And finally, Pluto. The dwarf planet of your heart. It rarely appears in your emotional sky, so often hidden behind Jupiter; it is cold, and quiet, and if astronomers knew about it they would argue about its size. 

You are satisfied. Never before have you done this variety of proscribed work, something so institutionally approved that you do not have to spend any of your own hard-earned money to pursue it. Never before have you been challenged by someone besides yourself. 

Back home in Killarney, you were one of the few people who knew how to get nearly anything. By your own calculations, you, your backpack, and good old-fashioned public transit are responsible for eleven percent of all drug transactions in Ireland last year. You have some fond memories of the time, sure: watching the countryside go by, listening to _A Dance Fantasy Inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ three hundred times, your research application bent over your knee, your hoodie obscuring your face. But besides that, you did not particularly enjoy the tediousness of being a drug dealer. It is ultimately one of the least pleasant forms of work-- only seasoned with enough glitz and glamor to coax amateurs through the meat grinder of criminal justice, hierarchical distribution trees, armed consumers, addicted consumers, laundering, lying, negotiating, etc, etc. 

It is undeniable that you made money doing this. You have a knack for it; your ability to track information and make connections translates well to high-risk, high-reward industries. And by coercing your suppliers into making drops in lieu of any non-text contact, you kept yourself anonymous. The execution of well-laid plans was also satisfying-- satisfying like it is here. 

But the only reason you did any of it was to make it to this place. You knew that it would take some acquisition of wealth, even with your impressive mental capacity, to make something of yourself: a fact solidified by the Dolce & Gabbana worn by lab technicians, the Westwood that you could see on young, stylish graduate students as they strode to class with unwired headphones-- and of course, the posh accents they all traded like an unobtainable currency. You needed a place of your own, needed to eat, needed to save up. 

Yes, that was the only reason. There was no secret, silly, Venutian part of you with dreams of being an outlaw. There was nothing alluring in and of itself about breaking rules. You don't still itch to reach out to your contacts, and you're satisfied. You're satisfied. 

So there. 

Atherly returns from break. You pull off your glasses and conceal them in your breast pocket before they notice, wrapping your face in a reflection of calm focus. Nonetheless, they come right up to you and put a hand on the back of your chair. "So, Jim."

"Mm…" You could reach for your portfolio and cut him off. A perfect escape. Surely the rocks are more pertinent than whatever they have to say, but… well, you did start off on a rough foot with the lab techs and they wouldn't be a bad group to have in your pocket. After a split second of internal debate, you look up at them. They startle, hair flopping up. "What," you ask. 

"There's this bar and cafe on Walton, Chez Dénué." 

You stare at them. 

"It, er, gets exciting around eight," they trail off, as if indicating something. 

You straighten up, lacing your fingers together on top of your desk. "Why?" 

"What?" 

"Why are you telling me this?" 

"I'm inviting you out?" 

"Hmm." You narrow your eyes at them; they smile nervously. 

Is it worth it? Atherly is twice as faggy as you and _Chez Dénué_ is obviously the name of a gay bar, or you wouldn't even consider going. The bars aren't always friendly to you, but they'll be a sight friendlier than any cishet tavern with taps instead of poles. On the one hand, you didn't come here to flirt, and on the other, you don't exactly get the impression that Atherly is hitting on you. You have the feeling that they need to initiate you, somehow; there is some rite of passage, some level of familiarity, that they're waiting for prior to revealing their true intentions-- the kind of intentions you're mad about-- and if you pass this up, you might never know. 

"Sure."


	4. Chez Dénué

You follow Atherly's shoulders through the tinted glass door. The ground seems to tremble beneath your beaten shoes with each thump of the bass, and you're relieved upon entering to find that the speakers are playing none other than the Euro-Caribbean disco sensation Boney M. It had only occurred to you in the passenger seat of Atherly's 2005 Volkswagen Golf that the music at this place might be _bad_ and you don't think you could've handled that. 

Atherly, whose fair brown hair and cow-like features you only registered once you saw him out of his lab coat, knows his way through the crowd far better than you. As he navigates the entrance, a recessed floor beneath a set of rounded marble steps, you snag behind-- your eyes caught on the surroundings. 

Every gay bar you've ever been to has been packed and smoky with dirty, sticker-plastered walls and ubiquitous evidence of sexual activity, a maze of colored rooms and thumping music. This place has a decidedly more _upper class_ feeling to it-- while still keeping to the garish sensibilities somehow shared by everyone who thinks to open a gay bar. Chez Dénué's interior boasts an intricate French Baroque theme, from what you can see in the dim pink and blue lighting. Cobalt and gold tiles shaped like diamonds with brass fixings. Floor vases that reach up to your waist filled with false lavender. The tables are all metal, their legs curling industriously beneath them as if to mimic the Eiffel Tower. These sparse accommodations are shoved to the side in order to free up the area in front of the bar for the perpetually milling university queers; you recognize some of them. No surprises. You assume the chairs are tucked away in the back, and can envision them clearly with detachable, string-laden floral cushions. The walls are muralled with grand lawns, hedges and rosebushes, and behind the bar, you identify a fresco of Versaille; it is hard to see over the heads of the people. 

You're going to lose Atherly soon. You push through two people, a couple, the smell of poppers strong between them. An sleeveless arm brushes against the tightly buttoned sleeves of your dress shirt-- the bicep is tattooed with the chemical composition of weed. Ah, if only you were still dealing.

Your feet find the stairs and Atherly's yellowjacket colored coat. They wave you over to one of the taller tables. A seemingly decorative ashtray in the center has the name of the place written on it: Chez Dénué. It could be the owner's last name, a coy reference to French restaurants and hotels, like the coy references to French architecture and history that speckle the interior like pigment on quail eggs. The meaning nonetheless chills you in the most pleasant way: House of Void. Home of Deprived. 

"Do you want a drink?" They yell over Felicidad - Miami Ocean Drive Club Mix. Your eyes flick to the bar. The last time you drank was fortunately uneventful-- but this is an environment where you could get truly, properly drunk. And now you know what you like, thanks to… 

Someone behind the bar flicks a shot glass up with the edge of his fingertip, catches it in his opposite hand. You'll be damned. 

"Yeah, but let me get it," you're already walking away from the table before Atherly has a chance to stop you. You're not going to be caught off-guard this time. 

Though Sebastian-- and what a name that is, Sebastian, making the most of all four of its syllables and affording the user all manner of shortenings, cutenings, like Seb or Bas, that final holdout _bastion_ , like a trustworthy knife you've always known the cut of-- yes, _Sebastian_ is making his summer-blue eyes at the other patrons, you saunter up to the bar with all the graces of a good impression and throw your arms over the top of the counter. Your hands, small like a lockpicks', stop shy of the bottles-- that gets his attention, probably used to attempted five-finger discounts. He regards you; knowing, not quite recognizing. You re-introduce yourself. 

"Jameson on the rocks," you call over easily. He is gravitating towards you, turning away the other customers with the determination of his eyes telling them: _you're_ next. "And your most sub-par beer." 

He glances over your shoulder-- checking out Atherly. "Glad to see you've found time to have fun!" He flashes you a knowing, distanced smile before he turns to make your drink. 

And good, because that little assumption has your head spinning. He's not only taken it for granted that you're here with Atherly for a 'fun' reason, he's saying he felt something when he saw you here. He's saying he remembers you, and more, that he surmised your work at the university is demanding and boring and it caused him some pain to imagine you enduring it. Did he think of all this just now? Or did he think about you sometime in the last handful of weeks? Did he hope to see you here? Why the hell would anyone say something like that? How does he expect you to respond? 

The song rolls to a stop, the smooth rotation broken up by light chatter as he turns back around with a foaming glass of beer and a squatter, more stately glass with ice in it. His absurd hair is shaggy today. Uncombed. He looks beachy. You retract your arms to permit him to set both drinks down. You're glaringly silent; fucking say something, Jim! 

You gather yourself as he pours the whiskey. The ice cracks above the first few notes of the next song-- Donna Summer, Hot Stuff, 7'' version. Someone is having a nostalgia trip and conducting it through the speakers. "Is this all you do?" you finally ask. 

"Huh?" Sebastian's eyes flick up to yours. "No, actually," he says. Jesus, his sleeves are chopped off, and those biceps-- well, you're not one to drool, but there's no denying the pleasing shape of a good set of muscles. He works out. 

You see that he's watching you-- done mixing. Your cue to leave. The impatience of the other clientele swells almost tangibly around you. _Quelle domage_ , you think. You're not done here. 

"No? What else do you do?" 

"For one thing I can drink as well as I bartend," he laughs at his own joke, and you might be seduced into laughing too-- but you're caught off guard by the way that he says 'well' instead of 'good'-- with a variety of compulsion towards eloquence-- a remnant of some impurity of language corrected by childhood adults to whichever extent of kindness or cruelty was closest. You always lived intimately with the unkind, the wicked, yes-- the diabolic. You cannot say you're 'doing good' anymore, no more than you can still lisp. 

Again, you show no reaction or response to Sebastian where one might be prudent, and he doubles back: 

"I mean, I do have interests besides partying," his hands are on the bar now, and maybe it's not so mad you haven't turned to leave, after all he still hasn't told you the price, "if that's not your thing." 

A surprised laugh forces past your lips. "If that's not my thing?" You can't believe you've been reduced to parroting, but you can believe what he's saying to you even less. "Why would that matter?" 

His eyes drift to someone behind you who's demanding his attention. "It's on the house, Jim." He gestures to the drinks, and then someone is calling over your head for a Cosmopolitan, and you lose the social capital of his attention. Your heart kicks madly against your binder-- look at me, god dammit! Answer my fucking question! Or what? -- Might Pluto tear from its orbit and chart a fiery course to Earth's surface? A single, comically improbable ball of fire to wipe out all life as we know it? Might as well! 

Somehow you find your way back and distribute the glasses on either side of the table. Atherly is in their phone, but they raise their head when you set the beer down. "Hey, thanks! How much I owe you?" 

"Five," you say and sit down, wrapping your hand around your glass. Despite the obviousness of your lie, they reach into their wallet and pass you a fiver. 

"So, listen," they turn off their phone and slide it to the side. Ah, getting to business, are we? "I was talking to my friend Cy in Dublin about you and how we work together." 

You balk at the idea of being discussed by anyone, but especially by someone whose name you recognize. Cy was once a regular customer of yours, and though there are many Cyrils in Dublin, Atherly's expression takes on conspiratorial wrinkles as they continue: "They said you're the best guy they've ever had. You know, for..." they gesture their hands in the air. 

"For what?" Your 'junior officer' alarm is blaring. You take a long drink and cast your eyes apathetically around the club. Two people in the shadows in the back rub each other's sides, arms entwined around waists. The liquor moves through you like their secretive fingers. "I think you have me confused with someone else." 

Atherly blinks, looking bewildered. "No way! I sent him that picture of you from the paper, he said he knew you." 

You snort. They seem incapable of catching on. "Anyone can say anything." 

Atherly chews on their lip, expression lowering into disappointment-- then consternation. "Hmm… even so, I mean… do you know where I could buy mushrooms? Like, y'know," their eyebrows waggle in a violent mock of subtlety, "the magic kind?" 

You tap the rest of the glass of whiskey down your throat. It burns you nicely, flirtatiously. Makes a fire where your lungs are. Pluto stabilizes. "Tried cow shit?" You set the empty glass on its low, heavy edge, looking at the way the wrought-iron table warps through the soda-lime-silica. 

"Pardon?" 

"Psilocybin mushrooms grow on cow manure. Surely you can find some cows not too far from here." 

"Uhh... see, that's kind of what I was hoping to avoid by finding a drug dealer." 

"I can't help you, Atherly." Your eyes blaze. They shrink back a little. "Sorry," they offer. They take a long drink of their beer. "This place is pretty cool though, right? Everyone's queer." 

You suck on the side of your cheek. "Yeah.... Lotsa fags." The whiskey makes your voice casual, young, in ways you can typically hide. Atherly's eyes widen and they sort of pull away from you. After they finish their drink, they invent an excuse to leave that begins and ends with the word 'sorry', pentultimated with 'buts'. 

You find yourself wanting another drink; or at least you surmise that's what you're feeling, instead of acknowledge that even as you bid them good-bye, your eyes snag on Sebastian's tall, drawn-back figure behind the bar. You'll quench your thirst another night. "Fine," you hear yourself say at some point, "fine, let's go," and the lights of Chez Dénué become lights on your thighs, cast in high beams over Atherly's passenger seat, the tires passing over the street. 

It's been a long time since you were attracted to anyone. Snap of teeth on bubblegum. You can't remember any of your childhood crushes. They all fade out of mind in a haze of shame and sloppy unfettered emotions. No one who's touched you has ever done so out of mutual appreciation. Lots of business arrangements. Lots of conveniences. You are conscious that you've never had sex in someone's home, _especially_ not your own. You are not still, in that holy pink-haloed biblical sense, a Virgin though you'd consider yourself a virgin in almost all sexual and romantic rites. 

You aren't sure. 

You aren't sure when you get out at home and begin the night's work. You aren't sure, papers all printed and next day's clothes selected, all unlaid things made in-line. You lock the doors, unsure. House lights winking out one by one, you still aren't sure. 

You bed down naked and bury yourself beneath the sheets. You cocoon your body in dark, in heat, in your own familiar shapes. You're still thinking about him, still unsure. Before you finally take your sleep you reach between your thighs. You let the warmth bloom in a shape like his, with a name like his. Sebastian. Before you can rest you have to say it, an admission that lives and dies in the crook of your arm. Your voice, small and breathless. Going, "ng. _Sebastian_."


	5. Surfacing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> physics

The next morning your alarm doesn't go off. 

You lie awake in bed with your eyes closed. You're waiting for it, your body tight as a spring. Your mind, on the other hand, is floating on the surface like phosphorous colored algae gyrating lazily atop turquoise waters. Foamy. The sun shines off it. 

You are thinking of Baptistina; about life and death; about how asteroids have parents, they take journeys, they have personalities. They act on each other. You are thinking about everything you know about gravitation. You're reminded of last night. A set of keen blue eyes and a steady hand. The twist in his robin-fine voice when he says your name. He must sing beautifully. 

Gravitational forces. You marvel that anyone could view astronomy as a niche science when the movements you chart are so enormous. Though you suppose it is only natural, given the stark difference between _you_ and everyone else that unceasingly gaps your human connections. 

While other people seem to only impart their reactions, rarely lunging forward of their own accord, you are completely driven by your beliefs. Your perspective and internal philosophy have a certain magnetism that conducts your actions into their unending current. When something occurs to you, you must follow it to its conclusion; often this can only be accomplished with experimentation, legwork— material interaction. It is so inexorable, part of you is always buzzing with the anxiety of an uncontrolled, unchecked action as the result of some unnoticed, undecided piece of data in your head. 

So this crush, for lack of a better word, is especially troubling. You cannot chase it to its center without doing things that don’t especially please you to consider.

The dim morning light colors your impersonal student apartment bedroom lavender-yellow. Unlike sound, light never fails to travel. It makes it to your eyelids and turns your sight reddish black. One of your eyes snaps open, unconsciously. Your body knows what time it is. You see the clock-- three minutes after six. The sharp ring of your alarm bumped off today; you regard its empty desk with confused impatience, shaking your head, and cross its name off your attendance sheet. 

You scramble upright to regard your phone, the date displayed by the time with condescending reassurance. It is Saturday morning. The lab is closed. 

You slink back under your covers and shut your eyes, trying to rediscover your thoughts in the darkness. Mothers of meteors. Gravitation. Life and death. But these newly discovered hours prompt revisions to your schedule, the time to accomplish research on your own ascribed infinite potential in the vacuum of your mind. You cannot find the dreamworld spark of inspiration again. 

You get out of bed and go to shower. Your body looks best in the mornings, before gravity has taken its microscopic toll and the swell of your backside curves in one direction towards your lean runner's legs. The other way, it curls into your waist and hips. No bumps this early in the day. No handles, no sharp turns. A smooth drive even in the most discerning of vehicles. You admire your stomach in the foggy mirror, fair-skinned as the moon with a dark trail leading down to your most secretive ego; one never properly stroked. You consider whether or not you look angelic, before the spark in your eyes catches mirth and you see the true devilishness of your good looks. 

Your shower feels especially nice this morning. In the same way that you cease to feel hungry with prolonged starvation, you have not felt the desire to masturbate to completion in some time. Maybe months. It could be the stress of your work life or your lack of interest in other people, but regardless of the reason, your self-exploration has caused your sexuality to remember itself. When you admire yourself in the mirror, it comes hotly to attention. The warmth of the water on your shoulders, as fond and familiar as a lover, indulges the rise in temperature on the surface of your skin. 

When you emerge, you feel like a new man. The day in front of you, one of pure research in complete privacy, unlimited time, is all yours. Your temporal domain. Without having to concern yourself with others' judgments, you dress in a silky bathrobe and your reading glasses and retire to the kitchen table with all the work you set out to sort for yourself the night before. 

Today, you do more than read it. You pore. You take each academic paper and read it as if you might base your research on its text alone. You look for flaws in even the most minor of arguments. Your hand cramps copying information from spreadsheets to double-check the math. You switch to purely mental mathematics; like your thoughts at dawn, sitting delicately on the surface of the water, your consciousness hovers above information as you hold it. You move yourself to the side for the data. 

And as you read, and the slatted glow of the day stretches further into the room, you make note of the most important snippets. The things that interest you. The things that you agree with. 

_Despite the apparent chasm of understanding between the laws that govern the quantum world and the celestial, it has always been possible to further our comprehension of the small by looking towards the grand._

You turn on the coffee maker. It's tricky not to think about your own body like one of the stars when you have them on the mind. Magnetized. Gravitized. You sink back into your research. 

_... the meteor family Baptistina carried the seeds of human life to Earth, thus accounting for genetic differences between primordial life and anthropocentric life..._

What else were you thinking about when you woke up? Something ghostly and sweet. Something you want to chase down now, for some reason; pin against you and work out its reason. 

Your coffee goes cold. The mid-morning sun is chilly. Slowly, you can feel your research truly beginning to take form in the underlying meanings and hidden messages you've puzzled out from journals, articles, tables, charts, astronomic calculation. Your mind is storing everything that matters and, as you focus more on the words for what you believe, images sharpen. It's your process, the one you've been honing all your life. To be in it feels like ecstasy; the complete absence of negatives. Your thoughts at your forefront. 

On top of which, you are feeling sated. Comfortable- even playful. You touch each page flirtatiously, savor the words with the keen interest of a caricaturish lover. It reminds you of how it felt to be doped up on LSD. It occurs to you that you wouldn't mind revisiting that experience. 

_... Ancient Greek's inventive techniques for testing their methods... perhaps the most important period of time for the field of astrophysics... al-Haytham's intuitive, pre-Newtonian discoveries solidify this, that fundamental truths make themselves apparent time and time again once they have first been noticed._

Oh, no. You're thinking about what Atherly asked you the other night. Thinking about your psilocybin contact, Irene, who is in Abingdon, so goddamn close it would take less than an afternoon to arrange a drop. 

_Could one of these 'flying' asteroids eventually loop into Earth's orbit, becoming a secondary moon? Not in our lifetime, but…_

Ugh. You spit back into the mug. Cold coffee. 

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to look into your channels. After all, this day alone has proven that though you're occupied with your studies, you do have free time. And it's not like you have to sell any of it to Atherly. Drugs are the ultimate currency, in your opinion. Money itself is fragile; a mere concept, an idea, nothing more in this age than a number on a screen. Illegal substances have a tenfold value, because not only do they _cost_ , but they have a use, they're hard to find in quantity and quality-- even more so for the people just interested in trying them. Most of your clientele were curious, not habitual, and your relaxed, by-the-order demeanor aided their explorations easily. You were so damn good at it... 

Yes. That's it. You've made up your mind. You might slight your fellow lab tech, but besides his lack of discretion, there is nothing inherently wrong with returning to your old tricks.

* * *

You continue to work until the wee hours. The sound of other Saturday nights, hookups and laugh riots, the thump of music, the screech of intoxication, red and black and blue and gold, worms through your walls until it doesn't. In between reading, you reach out to a few people on your phone. Your dealer in Abingdon-- _Disregard my recent career move, darling_ , you begin to type to her, before you reorient. This isn't a replacement for your work. You're not regressing. This is a side hustle. 

Instead, you keep it simple: _Fifty grams, 10/g, I can pay you now and be there to be there today to collect. Say, teatime?_

She, surprisingly, responds immediately: _Fuck me if it isn't Serendipity Jimmy! You're in town now?_

Irene, who your initial plug had acquainted you with years ago, has a personable, charismatic style of business. You suspect that she is frequently high, though not on any of the 'problem drugs'-- heroin, meth, and to a lesser extent cocaine. Instead you can imagine her drawing a joint from a cigarette holder while she texts you. You can imagine her taking molly in the morning in the bathroom mirror. 

_Yes._ You answer. On a second thought, you add, _Oxford._

There are a few moments of hesitation before Irene begins typing again. Drawing conclusions? 

_It's eerie. Uncanny. I was literally just planning to go up there this week to meet up with a friend. Can you do Friday?_

_Evening?_

_Works for me, baby. Where do you want the drop?_

You waver. In your silence, Irene adds, _Or do I get to meet the one and only now that you're thirty minutes away?_

No. You've worked for this anonymity. You're not going to discard it. 

_Still looking for a drop site. I'll let you know by Friday._

_Boo._  
_Can you pay in cash?_

_Always, darling._

_Then you're still my favorite._

You smile, only faintly. _Thank God._ you reply.


	6. Violet

Tonight you were planning on picking up. 

It is not the first time; the initial drop came and went with almost no conscious effort on your part. The only energy it seemed to take was a small imagining. It's not the second, third, or even fourth time either: these too passed without consequence. The activity is so routine, such a constant in your life, that you no longer have to think about it to do it. 

You acquisition your materials. You receive them, and then you distribute them. At first it's slow. You anticipated this. Irene initially supplies you with the requested amount, and a complimentary heart-shaped box of infused chocolate truffles. You happily go back on your shaky principle of not selling to Atherly and offer them a half-ounce for fifty dollars. They do not blink at the price. With a flagrancy that almost makes you forget what it's like to negotiate, they smile open-mouthed and start rifling through their wallet with a bunch of happy gratitudes. Within a week, they are asking you if you can get more for their friends.

Here, the beast of the classic drug distribution models rears its sloppy head. You could have given Atherly half a pound and seen how they operated as a solo dealer, further supply pending. It would mean giving you more time and less responsibility, right? Wrong. The supply would be out of your control. Atherly has not proven themselves trustworthy. The price, which you already change arbitrarily based on favoritism, would also end up having secondary input. All signs point to no.

Instead, you tell them you need them to pay up front. When they balk, you explain that two grams (at twenty apiece) will be a pleasant trip for any beginner-- and if they round up a group to pitch for a large amount, they may also have the chance to trip together. And what a bonding experience wouldn't that be?

The instant your supply is halved, you expand the market to your other old connections. Word has the chance to get around, and you begin to see another side of Oxford. The intelligentsia, the postural geniuses, the eager students and the jaded professors alike, have chemical needs to rival your hometown. 

By this, your fourth drop, you have direct contact with nine other clients. You sell two forms of psychedelics-- shrooms and acid-- and bricks of hash en masse. Waiting for you in a duct tape ribbon in the gender neutral bathroom of Chez Dénué are cannabistic bouquets and pharmaceutical assortments. The operation is going well. 

You have not seen Sebastian again. In fact, you are beginning to suspect he has lost his job there; and this occurs to you with a sort of annoyance on every subsequent visit. 

You _have_ seen Violet de Merville before. She carries with her a dignity completely unlike the kinds you are familiar with. Where you have seen _dignified_ in fine clothing at expensive restaurants, in prices, in ease, masculinity, conformity, Ms. de Merville holds courage on the tip of one index finger while balancing grace on the other. When you first saw her, stepping out of her office behind the door down the hall from your drop site, she wore an off-the-shoulder velvet dress cinched around her waist with a wide black leather belt; pearls dripped from her neck, silver rings poured from between her long black fingers. 

Though at the time you watched her advance through the club throngs to a stubbled man in a slick cherry-red car just oozing _sleazebag_ , she walked like she was on her way up the steps of Buckingham Palace with a choice word for the Queen on her tongue. Beneath her regal neck, her posture was straight but not rigid: she was relaxed and composed, her hands swinging slowly at her sides. You felt her power. You saw it too, in the way that others took her subtle cues and moved out of her way naturally, unintimidated. A respectful tide; a reverse magnetism. 

At the time you stored her in your mind as an example. Besides that you are operating illicitly in her club, at the time you hoped not to meet her since no person lives up to your image of them. Both of these were intelligent reasons; it is a shame, then, that as you slip through the doors of the club and begin to feign mingling, you see her rings rowed like the crest of a wave rendered in graphite gray as her hand closes around your forearm. "Pardon me," she says next to your ear, voice distinguishing itself with the balmy summers and syrupy liquors of the American South. It takes a great deal of effort not to spit out an expletive and make a break for it. Instead, you summon up your most confused, innocent expression. "Yes?" 

"Violet de Merville. Would you come with me to the back?" You do not resist and so like that, you are detained. 

Her office is pleasantly cluttered. You notice, with some relief, that her ashtray is full of joint-butts and she has a decadently large zippo lighter on the desk. Straightedge knows nothing about you. A small barred window looks out onto the alleyway outside; Violet has hung sheer magician-blue silk curtains in front of it. The respect you already felt for her increases, and you resolve not to lie. 

She, dressed in an electric green chemise, sits behind her desk. You remain standing, your nerves poised on the wings of your shoulders. She takes you in but says nothing to relieve the tension. 

After a moment, Ms. de Merville sighs and folds her fingers together. "What's your name, young man?" 

Her accent, unobscured by the thud of music, reminds you of wind in treetops. "Jim," you say.

"Jim, I thought I owed you the courtesy of a warning." Her gaze is firm; you find yourself putting your hands in your pockets, your back straightening, shoulders squaring. 

"There are enough reasons for law enforcement to come in here and harass us already," she opens her palms, "without someone running drugs through the back." 

As if you would ever get caught. Your pride smarts, but you push it aside out of necessity to try to really hear the fear behind her words. People let fear drive them all the time, and for Ms. de Merville these fears are quite plain: the intrusion of police into a protected space, an unofficial sanctuary, and her official place of business. Whether she personally condones what you do or not, she could be put at risk by the consequences of your actions. You are a danger. A threat. 

You can see in the graveness of her eyes that she is waiting for you to surrender this territory and leave peacefully, daring you to do anything else. 

You clear throat and say, casually, "And if I could guarantee that you wouldn't be bothered by the police ever again?" 

A spark of humor crosses her face. "I wouldn't believe you." 

She wouldn't be wrong not to. Though the words passed through the untroubled waters of your face with the ease of seaweed swaying in a current, they reflect nothing in reality. Only ideas, it's only ever ideas; but once you say the words, write the note, let the thought go from mind to life, these meaningless firings become fire, become molten, become ash. 

It isn't impossible. Plenty of larger operations fly completely invisible. Your mind spins towards carefully placed bribes and radio jammers, sparks in your eyes. Some of the electric current seems to pass to Ms. de Merville because her expression changes from amusement. Her face drops to contemplation though her chin stays up. 

"Should I?" She asks, breaking a silence you didn't realize you started. 

You slide your hands in your pockets and nod, hollowing your cheeks. "It's within my capabilities, Ms. de Merville. You'd be compensated for the use of this location." You're surprised by how adult your voice sounds, how easily you've slid into this _pitch_ , how little effort it's taking to deepen, to drawl, in a way so pleasing you're almost buying it yourself. 

"Violet, please." She folds her hands in front of her and looks at them, as if consulting her advisor. You can see, though, in the slight depression of her shoulders that she isn't going to say no. You stop listening and focus completely on your plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if it takes me three months or twelve years i will finish writing this story   
> hope u are liking it :)


	7. Violet

Tonight you were planning on picking up. 

It is not the first time; the initial drop came and went with almost no conscious effort on your part. The only energy it seemed to take was a small imagining. It's not the second, third, or even fourth time either: these too passed without consequence. The activity is so routine, such a constant in your life, that you no longer have to think about it to do it. 

You acquisition your materials. You receive them, and then you distribute them. At first it's slow. You anticipated this. Irene initially supplies you with the requested amount, and a complimentary heart-shaped box of infused chocolate truffles. You happily go back on your shaky principle of not selling to Atherly and offer them a half-ounce for fifty dollars. They do not blink at the price. With a flagrancy that almost makes you forget what it's like to negotiate, they smile open-mouthed and start rifling through their wallet with a bunch of happy gratitudes. Within a week, they are asking you if you can get more for their friends.

Here, the beast of the classic drug distribution models rears its sloppy head. You could have given Atherly half a pound and seen how they operated as a solo dealer, further supply pending. It would mean giving you more time and less responsibility, right? Wrong. The supply would be out of your control. Atherly has not proven themselves trustworthy. The price, which you already change arbitrarily based on favoritism, would also their secondary input. All signs point to no.

Instead, you tell them you need them to pay up front. When they balk, you explain that two grams (at twenty apiece) will be a pleasant trip for any beginner-- and if they round up a group to pitch for a large amount, they may also have the chance to trip together. And what a bonding experience wouldn't that be?

The instant your supply is halved, you expand the market to your other old connections. Word has the chance to get around, and you begin to see another side of Oxford. The intelligentsia, the postural geniuses, the eager students and the jaded professors alike, have chemical needs to rival your hometown. 

By this, your fourth drop, you have direct contact with nine other clients. You sell two forms of psychedelics-- shrooms and acid-- and bricks of hash en masse. Waiting for you in a duct tape ribbon in the gender neutral bathroom of Chez Dénué are cannabistic bouquets and pharmaceutical assortments. The operation is going well. 

You have not seen Sebastian again. In fact, you are beginning to suspect he has lost his job there; and this occurs to you with a sort of annoyance on every subsequent visit. 

You _have_ seen Violet de Merville before. She carries with her a dignity completely unlike the kinds you are familiar with. Where you have seen _dignified_ in fine clothing at expensive restaurants, in prices, in ease, masculinity, conformity, Ms. de Merville holds courage on the tip of one index finger while balancing grace on the other. When you first saw her, stepping out of her office behind the door down the hall from your drop site, she wore an off-the-shoulder velvet dress cinched around her waist with a wide black leather belt; pearls dripped from her neck, silver rings poured from between her long black fingers. 

Though at the time you watched her advance through the club throngs to a stubbled man in a slick cherry-red car just oozing _sleazebag_ , she walked like she was on her way up the steps of Buckingham Palace with a choice word for the Queen on her tongue. Beneath her regal neck, her posture was straight but not rigid: she was relaxed and composed, her hands swinging slowly at her sides. You felt her power. You saw it too, in the way that others took her subtle cues and moved out of her way naturally, unintimidated. A respectful tide; a reverse magnetism. 

At the time you stored her in your mind as an example. Besides that you are operating illicitly in her club, at the time you hoped not to meet her since no person lives up to your image of them. Both of these were intelligent reasons; it is a shame, then, that as you slip through the doors of the club and begin to feign mingling, you see her rings rowed like the crest of a wave rendered in graphite gray as her hand closes around your forearm. "Pardon me," she says next to your ear, voice distinguishing itself with the balmy summers and syrupy liquors of the American South. It takes a great deal of effort not to spit out an expletive and make a break for it. Instead, you summon up your most confused, innocent expression. "Yes?" 

"Violet de Merville. Would you come with me to the back?" You do not resist and so like that, you are detained. 

Her office is pleasantly cluttered. You notice, with some relief, that her ashtray is full of joint-butts and she has a decadently large zippo lighter on the desk. Straightedge knows nothing about you. A small barred window looks out onto the alleyway outside; Violet has hung sheer magician-blue silk curtains in front of it. The respect you already felt for her increases, and you resolve not to lie. 

She, dressed in an electric green chemise, sits behind her desk. You remain standing, your nerves poised on the wings of your shoulders. She takes you in but says nothing to relieve the tension. 

After a moment, Ms. de Merville sighs and folds her fingers together. "What's your name, young man?" 

Her accent, unobscured by the thud of music, reminds you of wind in treetops. "Jim," you say.

"Jim, I thought I owed you the courtesy of a warning." Her gaze is firm; you find yourself putting your hands in your pockets, your back straightening, shoulders squaring. 

"There are enough reasons for law enforcement to come in here and harass us already," she opens her palms, "without someone running drugs through the back." 

As if you would ever get caught. Your pride smarts, but you push it aside out of necessity to try to really hear the fear behind her words. People let fear drive them all the time, and for Ms. de Merville these fears are quite plain: the intrusion of police into a protected space, an unofficial sanctuary, and her official place of business. Whether she personally condones what you do or not, she could be put at risk by the consequences of your actions. You are a danger. A threat. 

You can see in the graveness of her eyes that she is waiting for you to surrender this territory and leave peacefully, daring you to do anything else. 

You clear throat and say, casually, "And if I could guarantee that you wouldn't be bothered by the police ever again?" 

A spark of humor crosses her face. "I wouldn't believe you." 

She wouldn't be wrong not to. Though the words passed through the untroubled waters of your face with the ease of seaweed swaying in a current, they reflect nothing in reality. Only ideas, it's only ever ideas; but once you say the words, write the note, let the thought go from mind to life, these meaningless firings become fire, become molten, become ash. 

It isn't impossible. Plenty of larger operations fly completely invisible. Your mind spins towards carefully placed bribes and radio jammers, sparks in your eyes. Some of the electric current seems to pass to Ms. de Merville because her expression changes from amusement. Her face drops to contemplation though her chin stays up. 

"Should I?" She asks, breaking a silence you didn't realize you started. 

You slide your hands in your pockets and nod, hollowing your cheeks. "It's within my capabilities, Ms. de Merville. You'd be compensated for the use of this location." You're surprised by how adult your voice sounds, how easily you've slid into this _pitch_ , how little effort it's taking to deepen, to drawl, in a way so pleasing you're almost buying it yourself. 

"Violet, please." She folds her hands in front of her and looks at them, as if consulting her advisor. You can see, though, in the slight depression of her shoulders that she isn't going to say no. You stop listening and focus completely on your plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if it takes me three months or twelve years i will finish writing this story  
> hope u are liking it :)


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